Psychological defences are deeply ingrained patterns of behaviour, developed in childhood to protect us from painful feelings. By the time we reach adulthood, the defences have become a barrier that automatically blocks out certain aspects of self, which have been pushed into the unconscious, into the shadow.

Wilhelm Reich, the founder of body-mind psychotherapy, spoke of five major defence patterns developed over five stages of infancy, i.e. the defences formed by a new born baby are different to those formed by an older child. He referred to the five defences as character types.

In this talk, we will look at the astrology of the character types formed in the first three stages of life: the schizoid type (related to Uranus and Mercury), the oral type (related to Neptune and the Moon) and the masochist type (related to Pluto and the Sun). We will look at individual charts to discover how the planets reliably indicate the specific defence patterns associated with each character type. And we will discover the healing response to each of the character types; the way to work with the shadow to retrieve long lost, disowned but immensely valuable aspects of self.

An important part of this exploration is recognising that though the defences have a negative impact on life, each of the character types also bring wonderful gifts arising from the essential core of the person. Every person has a core star, a unique light that is bigger than any of the defences.

About the Speaker

Rebekah J S Hirsch is the author of Charting the Soul: Astrology, Characterology and the Human Energy Field. She is a mature, experienced, professional Psycho-Spiritual Astrologer. She originally trained with Liz Greene and Howard Sasportas at the Centre for Psychological Astrology in London and has worked as an astrologer for 25 years. In 2002, she graduated, after four years of intensive study, from the Barbara Brennan School of Healing USA. Brennan healers take a psycho-spiritual approach to healing and the training includes neo-Reichian body-mind psychological process work as well as hands-on energy healing. She returned to BBSH to complete the Advanced Level training in 2009. She has run a private practice as an energy healer for the last 12 years. In 2008, she completed three years of training in the transpersonal process known as Voice Dialogue and she is now a trainer and facilitator of Voice Dialogue. She is also a visionary painter, making images to represent the energy patterns of the horoscope as they appear in a person’s Human Energy Field. Rebekah Hirsch’s website: chartingthesoul.com